Pea farmer by day, superhero by night. Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua drives down to a waterhole in Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park three evenings a week to provide water to drought-stricken buffaloes, elephants, zebras, lions, giraffes and other animals.

Kenya has been suffering from drought since June 2016. That was when Patrick realized he had to do something. He told Bayside Journal, “Kenya became very dry in June. I decided that the only way to save animals was to give them water.”

Image: Facebook/ Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

He began filling up a tanker with water that he would buy and drive down 70 km to the waterhole. Each trip costs him $250. “Initially, it was money from my own pocket. Then I put out what I was doing on Facebook. Friends began to donate,” he says.

Image: Facebook/ Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

It’s got to such a stage that animals have started recognising him and waiting for him to come to give them water. “Animals know me very well now, they know my tanker, and they wait for me. They just sleep around the waterhole. When they see the tanker they wake up and kind of welcome me. They surround me, buffaloes, zebras, elephants. It’s an exciting experience every time.”

As his work started getting more eyeballs, a group of American women started a GoFundMe campaign for him. Check it out here if you want to donate. “I am getting donations from Europe, Korea, China and India too,” he says.

Image: Facebook/ Patrick Kilonzo Mwalua

The situation in the Park is so bad that if he doesn’t deliver water, many animals will die. There was a similar situation some years back when the Park lost a lot of elephants. Rains are not expected to hit Kenya until November.

POPULAR CATEGORY

Bayside Journal is a youth-centric feature website empowering young writers to write and report on stories ignored by the mainstream media. Outrageous ideas and impact makers excite us. We believe in constantly striving towards narrating the most extraordinary stories. Our community of empowered writers range from children in high school, universities to professionals from various corporate industries.